A silver BMW crossed Chicago Avenue, clipping the rear tire of a bicycle. The bike spiraled left as the rider crashed into the curb, and the car skidded to a stop.
The vision was all in Mason’s mind. His friend Addie was driving, but she didn’t see the accident.
“Mason? Hello? Did you hear me?” Addie’s eyes flipped between him and the road as she drove them to school. “Where did you go? Really. We were talking and it’s like you disappeared.”
“Yeah. Sorry. It’s just—” Mason pointed back to the intersection. “I got distracted. There was a new tire track.” His light brown hair flopped into his eyes from the wind, and he pushed it back, resting his head in his hand. Thoughts of the accident mingled with the remnants of his conversation with Addie.
“Geez, dude. I mean, it’s fun when you make up stories when we’re bored and all, but I need you to focus. We’re almost to school. This is important.”
Mason shook his head clear. The bags under Addie’s eyes were a telltale sign that she had spent most of the previous night crying. “I know. I know. I got you.”
“What do you know?” Addie challenged.
“To focus. You need me to focus.”
“And?”
“And...” A glimmer of what she had said when he was paying attention to the tire tracks flashed in his mind. “And, I won't say anything to anyone.”
Addie leaned her head against the headrest and relaxed her shoulders. “I mean, really. Tell no one. Don’t say anything about my moving to a soul. No matter what.”
“Got it.” Mason studied the pale brown freckles that dotted Addie’s cheek. They reminded him of their summers as kids. He used to call her “freckle-face” because they darkened so much in the sun. Now, they hinted at how close summer was. “But why not tell anyone?”
Addie glared at him, and her brown eyes, which she always claimed were hazel, pierced through him. “Are you kidding me?”
“No. Really,” Mason said. “I mean, it’s not like it’s a secret you can keep from your friends. They’ll find out you’re moving. If not from you, then from their parents. All your mom has to do is tell one person, and the news will fly around their cocktail parties. You know how parents gossip.”
“I can’t tell my friends today. Okay?” she snapped. “I’ve barely processed it myself. I can’t handle their questions. Not yet. I don’t have answers.”
Mason leaned back against the passenger seat and let the air between them breathe. He’d grown up next door to Addie and knew firsthand how stubborn she was. She named their fort Arendelle the summer he was ten and she was nine because she loved the movie Frozen. If she wouldn’t budge on a fort name, she wasn’t going to budge on this.
“Fair enough,” he said.
She waved a hand toward the road behind them. “Fine. Tell me about the skid marks back there. What story did you make up this time? Maybe it’ll get my mind off how mad I am about my dad’s work transfer.”
Mason gazed out the passenger window, not wanting to think about what he had seen but telling her anyway. “A guy on a bicycle, probably a commuter ’cause he wore one of those black crossbody bags, you know, like he was headed to the train. Well, he crossed Chicago Avenue in front of a silver BMW. The driver hit the brakes as soon as she saw him.”
Addie and Mason waited at an intersection as runners from the nearby college crossed in front of them, jogging slowly. It was probably the end of their cool-down run, and Mason’s eyes followed them as they continued down the side street. He wished he’d gone on a run before school. It would’ve cleared his mind.
“Well?” Addie asked.
“She just missed him,” Mason lied.
Addie’s face relaxed a little. “Lucky morning for that guy. Not so lucky for me.”
“Yeah,” Mason agreed, because there was nothing else he could say.
“What else?” she asked. “Did the commuter guy even know he was almost hit? Or did he just keep riding?”
Mason replayed the image in his mind: The woman skidded to a stop as soon as her front bumper caught the bike’s rear tire. Thankfully, the guy was wearing a helmet, but still. The rider’s impact with the curb was ugly enough to distract Mason from his conversation with Addie, a conversation that began the night before.
Mason didn’t want to think about their conversation or the commuter, so he steered Addie toward something general. “You don’t need me to tell you what happened. If you look at the skid marks closely enough, they’ll tell you what happened.”
“Yeah, yeah. The speed, the pavement temperature, the wheels… all of it tells what happened,” Addie mimicked. “You’ve told me all that. But what I really want to know is how you can make up so many different stories. I mean, really, you’re so specific.”
“Imagination. I have a great imagination.” Right now, though, Mason’s imagination wasn’t good enough to imagine Addie gone.
Since last night, when she told him that her family was moving to Nevada, he’d been unmoored by the thought that he’d no longer hear music blasting from Addie’s Jeep as she pulled into her drive just before curfew or see her running out the front door when her friend Becca picked her up. Ever since she moved in next door, he’d been falling in and out of love with her—depending on the year—and even though she was currently dating Declan Dapko, Mason couldn’t get his mind off her.
“Why aren’t you doing better in English with that imagination?”
“You got me.” Mason shrugged. “Really, though, the tire marks aren’t all about imagination if you know the science behind them.”
Addie rolled her eyes, and he knew, at least for the moment, she wasn’t thinking about her move.
“Actually,” he continued. “You should be asking why I’m not doing better in physics.”
“Whatever.”
“Really, it’s a lot about science.” He knew the tire marks left by her boyfriend, Declan, were coming up. They were a perfect example because, like Declan, they were typical.
“Nice try. What did you say a minute ago? A silver BMW? A commuter on a bike with a crossbody bag? And the other day, a coyote early in the morning?” Addie smiled, the first smile he’d seen all morning. “A guy in a yellow VW Bug with a blue flower in the vase? Remember that one? That’s not science.”
“It was a blue hydrangea,” he said. “And most VW Bugs have a flower in the vase. That’s not creative.”
“But a blue hydrangea?” Addie raised an eyebrow. “What are you, a florist?”
“They exist. Look them up.” He wondered if he was too detailed in his descriptions. It had been easier to narrate most of what he saw, though, like this morning, he often left out the bad parts.
“I don’t doubt their existence,” she said. “But where did you pull a blue hydrangea out of? That’s my point. How do you come up with so many details like that?”
“Consider it ‘filling in the gaps.’” They’d returned to normal, or at least as close to normal as they could knowing she was moving in less than a month.
“Look.” Mason pointed to the mark on the road left by Declan. They’d been driving over it since Monday, and Mason knew it was the car he read about in the newspaper, the one full of the kids responsible for destroying several mailboxes in the neighborhood—batting practice out the window. Even though Mason knew who’d been driving the “unidentified black car,” he hadn’t shared that bit of information with Addie or the police.
Addie slowed her Jeep slightly.
“Look at that one again,” he said. “You can see the slide, the trailed mark, and then the slight ridge, the darkening at the edge. It’s faded, but do you remember how dark it was a couple days ago? Can you tell me how it was made?”
“Are you seriously quizzing me?” Addie asked.
Mason put his arm out the window and played with the cool morning wind as she drove. “I’m waiting.”
“Well, Mr. Henley…” she teased as she took the same corner. “The driver took the turn too fast because…”
Because he’s an egotistical douche who needs to beat down others to make himself feel big.
“...he was in a hurry to get some coffee,” Addie said.
“See, you’re filling in the gaps.”
“Sure, just not as specific as your blue flower,” she said, coming to a stop at another intersection and waiting for a blue minivan to cross.
“What if I told you that Declan was the driver that made those tire marks?” Mason watched Addie’s face, hoping she didn’t light up at the mention of her boyfriend.
She scrunched her eyes, ever so slightly, as if in concentration.
Not a dreamy look. I’ll take that.
Addie flashed a smile as an idea occurred to her. “I would say that Declan took the corner too fast because he was so anxious to see me.”
“See, you do have a good imagination,” Mason said with a laugh.
“Not funny.” Addie reached to hit him, but he dodged out of the way.
“You’re punishing me enough by putting the top down.” Mason turned down the heat. “My feet are on fire. Why turn the heat on if you put the top down?”
“You know the rule. Check the temp.”
Mason looked at his phone and rolled his eyes. Addie’s rule was that the top had to be down if the temperature was sixty or higher. “Sixty-two barely qualifies. What are you? A glutton for punishment? Is that why you decided to go out with Declan?”
“Do we really have to discuss that again? You’re like the big brother I never wanted. I told you there’s a sensitive side to Declan that people don’t see.”
“Oh, that’s right!” Mason hit his forehead in mock realization. “I forgot that he cried when we watched Gnomeo and Juliet in English.”
“I know he used to be a player, but he’s changed,” Addie insisted. “He matured a lot when he did that internship with his dad’s law firm last summer too.”
Mason sat up a bit straighter. “I see him when you aren’t around. He’s not as changed as you think.”
“You’re just jealous because you secretly want to date me.”
Mason looked out the window to hide the heat that rose in his cheeks.
“Oh stop; I’m teasing,” Addie said with a laugh. “I know you’ve hated him since you were babies, but until he gives me reason to doubt him, I’m going to believe him.”
Declan was also a senior, which means he’d annoyed Mason for most of his life. Declan was arrogant and loud and self-absorbed. If he wasn’t concerned about himself, he was concerned about making everyone else concerned about him.
“What happened with that one?” Addie asked as she drove over another skid mark.
“A green Subaru stopped suddenly because the driver thought he missed his turn. Didn’t I tell you that yesterday?”
“Don’t be salty,” she cajoled. “I was checking your memory. Look who’s crabby now.”
“You’re the one who’s trying to change the subject.”
Mason shifted in his seat to see Addie more clearly. He couldn’t fathom how she could believe Declan’s “sweetness” act. They’d discussed Declan’s breakup with Talia at the end of last year and the rumors that Mason was sure Declan had spread. Addie wasn’t clueless about the type of person Declan was.
But if Declan had told Addie that he’d changed, Mason knew she’d give him the benefit of the doubt. That’s how nice she was. Mason had to trust that Addie would see the truth eventually.
“Tell me,” Addie said. “How do you do it? How do you remember all the stories you make up about the skid marks? I don’t think you’ve ever forgotten a story you’ve told me.”
“Maybe you’re the one who’s forgotten. And I’ve been making up new stories, pretending that I told them before.”
They inched forward in traffic, and Mason couldn’t pry his eyes from her. He followed the wisps of golden-brown hair that escaped her messy bun and floated in the breeze. Those strands of hair convinced him that her rule of putting the Jeep top down whenever the temperature was above sixty was brilliant. She said it made her happy when she drove to school in the open air, and this morning, she definitely needed the open air, and so did he. Everything seemed to be closing in around him.
They’d been carpooling since Mason got his license. But once Addie got her license, there was an unspoken understanding that her Jeep Wrangler was way cooler than his Toyota Prius.
“Really, how do you do it?” she asked, glancing at him.
The morning sun hit Addie’s eyes, and Mason almost saw hazel. He fished in the glove compartment for her sunglasses and handed them to her.
“Thanks. Well? How do you keep all the skid marks straight?”
She was still trying to prevent him from asking the real questions, either about Declan or her impending move. She was in avoidance mode, something he’d seen before. He was too. He fought to keep from asking what he really wanted to know or from saying what he really wanted to say.
“I guess I have a good memory.”
“Well, use that good memory to remember not to say anything to anyone at school,” Addie said. “I’m so glad it’s Friday. And Monday’s Memorial Day. No school.”
Mason nodded and gazed at the kids walking on the sidewalk, moving faster than their line of cars. His thoughts returned to the night before, to Addie sitting on the old wooden swing in his backyard. She hadn’t sat on the swing in years, not since her parents’ near-divorce over her father’s increased interest in some woman at work.
Last night, when Mason looked out the back door and saw Addie sitting on the swing, he knew something was very wrong.